Andrew Cuomo agreed that the New York hush money case against Donald Trump was politically motivated.
The former Democratic governor of New York, who also served as the state’s attorney general from 2007 to 2010, said the charges would never have been filed if Trump had not run for president again.
“The New York attorney general’s case, quite frankly, should never have been brought,” Cuomo said Friday in an interview on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher.
“And if his name wasn’t Donald Trump and if he wasn’t running for president — I’m the former AG of New York — I’m telling you that case would never have been filed,” he added. “That’s what offends people, and it should be, because if there’s anything left, it’s faith in the justice system.”
The case was brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and the Democrat has been accused by the MAGA world of unfairly targeting Trump as the Republican Party’s presumptive 2024 nominee.
Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) said Friday that if Donald Trump had not run for president in 2024, the hush money lawsuit would not have been filed against him
Trump was convicted by a Manhattan jury last month of 34 crimes related to a hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election to keep quiet about their extramarital affair a decade earlier.
The former president still denies the affair and has promised to appeal.
President Joe Biden and Trump face off on stage Thursday in Atlanta for their first debate on the 2024 general election.
Maher said in the interview with Cuomo that he agreed that the specific case against Trump would never be something that could derail his campaign, and felt it was a gamble to file the charges against him.
“I was always with you during that trial in New York, the hush money trial,” the late-night show host told Cuomo in a joint interview with former U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.). “I don’t think they should have taken it.”
“It always seemed like a sex case and people always looked at it that way,” he argued.
There are three other criminal cases against Trump with dozens of other charges. One case takes place in Florida and is related to the taking of classified documents from the White House. The other two are related to election interference – one took place in Washington, DC and the other in Fulton County, Virginia.
“The New York trial at which he was convicted was the biggest fundraising bonanza ever,” Maher said on Friday’s episode.
“He lagged behind Biden and now he’s come a lot further,” he continued. “That lawsuit was the main reason people had to send their $5, $10, $25 checks to Donald Trump.”
And Maher isn’t wrong.
HBO host Bill Maher agreed with Cuomo that the case against Trump would never derail his campaign and would only strengthen his support before November.
Both self-reported fundraising numbers and post-conviction numbers skyrocketed for Trump after he became a felon.
More than a quarter of voters (27 percent) said in a poll after the ruling that the conviction increases their likelihood of voting for Trump in November.
Cuomo says Americans are losing faith in democracy as the justice system appears to become involved in elections and decide who can and cannot serve in public office.
“You want to talk about a threat to democracy – if you make this country believe that you are playing politics with the justice system and you are trying to put people in jail or convict people for political reasons, then we have a real problem. the former governor said.